


The Downunder Files

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 22:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Five headcanon AU for if the X Files was set in Australia.





	The Downunder Files

1

Samantha’s disappearance is officially recorded as a crocodile attack. His mother moves to Brisbane but his father keeps the Queenslander near Airlie Beach. He spends the rest of his childhood scuba diving on the reef and watching the Southern Cross.

After Oxford, he sets up his consultancy in Melbourne, after parting ways with the violent crimes taskforce of the Victorian police. His first client is a woman, Kelly Cahill, who claims she was abducted by aliens while driving in the Dandenongs. She claims she lost an hour of time and she bears strange marks on her abdomen. He requests a full medical.

2

The doctor is new. She’s also a short, fiery redhead with an attitude the size of the MCG.

“You must barrack for Collingwood,” he quips as she tells him for the third time that time just does not disappear. Universal invariant aside, Doc Scully can explain neither the marks or the cause of the womb infection for which Ms Cahill was hospitalised.

“I don’t follow Aussie Rules, Mr Mulder,” she says and he hopes that means she’s into real footy. “I’ll buy that this woman is suffering from some pronounced psychosis, but whether it’s organic or as a result of those marks, I can’t say, but to say that they’re riding around in flying saucers, it’s crazy.”

He is crazy. He’s been told a million times. As crazy as a cut snake. But there’s a feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him he needs to find out more. Not just about Kelly Cahill and the hundreds of other abduction cases he’s uncovered, but about Dana Scully.

She agrees to investigate the site of the abduction with him ‘because it’s on my way home’ and that’s how their working partnership begins.

3

She provides him medical data when he requires it, becomes a trusted sounding board even when she dismisses his ‘theories’ as having more holes that than the entire coral surface of the Reef (which is nearly 350,000 square kays, Mulder); she takes him to all the best coffee shops and teases him when he claims he’s cold in 20 degrees. He’s not sure what he brings to the relationship other than a steady supply of Violet Crumbles and a bad habit of turning up at her place on weekends with potato scallops (they’re called potato cakes, Mulder), and bottles of New Zealand sav blanc. He buys her a ticket for the State of Origin match but she tells him she doesn’t follow rugby either. But that’s real footy, he says and she digs him in the ribs, before offering him a Tim Tam and a sly smile.

He’s never had a friendship like this. He doesn’t quite know how to handle his growing feelings and when she disappears, he goes out of his mind. She’s returned without ceremony with no memory and will not discuss his fears that her abduction was as a result of her connection to him. When her sister dies in a shooting, he’s more convinced than ever, but she dismisses him. When he suggests the red mole on the back of her neck is new, she tells him it’s just a skin tag and not to be such a worry-wort.

4

Her diagnosis is a gut-punch and he spends hours trawling the net for treatments he knows she’ll flip off. Cancer happens to 1 in three people, Mulder, she says, as though acceptance is going to help. Dana Scully is one in five billion, he knows that much. His mates at the Lone Gunmen find a man who knows a man who knows a quack who’s got some idea about her type of cancer. Her brother flies in from Sydney and they end up in a brawl at the pub. Bill calls him a ‘fucking nutjob’ and throws his VB in his face, ‘that’s what I think of you and your Victorian beer. Leave my sister to die with dignity’. When Mulder goes back to the hospital Scully agrees to try the treatment. She goes into remission and he sends Bill a slab of VB as a gift.

5

He’s on to something big. He tells her about but she’s tired. She’s in line for a promotion at work and she needs to give it her all. She can’t just drop everything and help him out on some wild goose chase whenever he demands it. When she shows up at his door and tells him she’s moving to Sydney he can’t breathe, can’t think. She leaves and he chases her down the passageway. He tells her she’s made him a whole person. Her eyes moisten and she rests her head on his shoulder. Tells him he’s always been whole all by himself. But it’s not true. He kisses her. She’s still in his arms. He whispers sorry but she shakes her head, lifts those big blue eyes and kisses him back, with such intensity that he feels time disappear, snap back and alter the way he thinks about life and the future.

They fly to Sydney to watch an Origin match and Queensland win. They win the series. But he’s the biggest winner of them all, when she says yes to his spontaneous proposal in the stands surrounded by a sea of maroon and white fans. They rent a campervan and travel the country, sometimes sleeping under the stars, sometimes tussling for the doona in the confines of a camp bed. They only settle when she’s pregnant. Within earshot of the Ninety Mile Beach, they buy a block in east Gippsland and he’s certain their kids will grow up respecting the ocean, supporting the Maroons and adoring their mother as much as he does.


End file.
